


Karen Paige Has Horrible Plans And Matt Can't Escape Them

by HK44



Series: Matt Can't [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Can be read alone, Complete, Confessions, Continuation, F/F, Fluff, M/M, Misophonia, audio triggering, karen says matt's whole name when she is mad at him, kind of, rated t for sexual scenarios being mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 05:14:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6225409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HK44/pseuds/HK44
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claire makes a noise, breath exhaling sharply from her nose, and says, “Well, when you first loved him then.”</p><p>But it’s the same. On some level, his love for Foggy was automatic, the moment he stepped into the dorm room and heard Foggy’s chatter, heard his voice and felt warmed by, comforted by it. On another level it was a slow process that probably took all of a month to complete. It just took a while to realize that the way he loved Foggy was not the same way he had loved anyone else. It’d been a while since he’d loved a living person and Stick hadn’t exactly approved of attachments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Karen Paige Has Horrible Plans And Matt Can't Escape Them

**Author's Note:**

> For dayseecrowns, who wanted to know what Matt and Karen’s plan for the confession of Matt’s love for Foggy were.

 It’s three in the morning and Claire is digging a needle into his skin. Matt is not enjoying it. Karen seems to be less impressed with him, judging from the air of annoyance shifting off of her.

(She’d been unamused when he showed up at the window and scared the living daylights out of her.)

(For a moment, he thought he got the wrong apartment but no, it was Claire’s place.)

(Karen hissed, “Don’t ask” when he opened his mouth as she let him clamber into the room through the window before going off to get Claire.)

(He doesn’t ask.)

It’s the first time he’s been alone with Karen, or at least without Foggy bustling around, making jokes and attempting to avoid paperwork, since he told her how he felt about Foggy.

In his defense, there were many reasons why he suddenly needed to go home despite having a pile of work to finish on his desk the moment Foggy left and Karen settled on the frame of his office door, this _knowing_ air around her.

He had to water his cactus.

There was someone being mugged.

He had to go feed his dog, sorry, sorry, he meant his neighbor’s dog, he’s dog-sitting for them and ahahaha, oh look at the time, he has to go, goodbye.

It was totally not because he didn’t want to talk about the fact that he confessed to her how he was hopelessly in love with Foggy and didn’t know what to do about it and then proceeded to further embarrass himself by talking about Foggy in intense and loving detail.

(He’s never getting drunk again, he swears.)

Karen shifts and he can feel something happening with her face but he can’t tell what until Claire mumbles, “She’s giving you her death stare.”

How Claire is familiar enough with Karen to know what her death stare is, Matt is apparently not allowed to ask, going off of Claire pinching the side of his neck _hard_ when he opens his mouth to ask about this little thing they’ve apparently got going.

It doesn’t matter he doesn’t want to know.

(He does. He really, really does.)

(Does Foggy know about them? Did they all start a club when Karen found out? Do they just rant to each other about Matt Murdock and his stupid vigilante ways in said club? He hopes they met another way but frankly this way sounds more possible than anything else and part of him really does not like that.)

“Why are you giving me your death stare, Karen?” He goes for a charming smile, hoping to ease the tension.

Karen clenches her fist and he decides that the floor is an interesting subject to memorize. There’s a lump in the flooring right next to the chair leg. How interesting.

“You know why,” she mutters, settling into her chair and Matt winces.

The conversation with Foggy about being Daredevil was the worst but the conversation with Karen about being Daredevil came a close second. She didn't cry like Foggy had, but she'd yelled for an hour and then left without another word, not coming into work for a week straight.

“They need me,” he says quietly and he winces when Claire flicks her fingers at a wound on his cheek but says it louder again. “These people need me.”

“What?” Karen snaps. Her body goes tense, heart increasing in a rapid, _irritated_ way. “I’m not talking about _that_.” She says “that” like it’s a dirty word, gesturing outwards at Matt, at Daredevil, and he absentmindedly picks at the leg of his suit, feeling shameful. “I’m talking about Foggy.”

Matt blinks and looks up in her general direction. “What?”

“You do not get to sob about how much you are in love with Foggy and then refuse to let me help you, Matt Murdock,” she snaps, hands fisting the edge of the table.

Claire snickers and the needle stops poking into his skin. Matt is suddenly aware that there is no Foggy to stop Karen from talking about this and considers jumping out a window. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice that sounds suspiciously like Foggy’s reminds him that jumping out a window is not rational.

He’s a blind man getting stitched up in a nurse’s apartment, dressed in a skin-tight red outfit, in front of his secretary/friend who is only wearing a shirt that smells intensely of said nurse despite her never having met the woman before, after having been fighting with a group of wanna-be car thieves, one of whom stabbed him in the arm and then yelled, “SWEET AND SOUR SAUCE” when Matt broke his arm in retaliation.

None of this is rational.

Karen must know where his mind is going because she stands and closes the window that had been pushing a steady and cool breeze into the room.

Matt feels trapped as Karen settles back down in front of him and Claire starts to wrap a bandage around his stitches. It’s a clawing kind of trapped, a suffocating kind. It’s akin to the trapped he felt when Foggy found out. The world radiates hot around him.

He can’t breathe.

Karen squeezes his hand. “You should tell him.”

“Or I could not do that.”

“Or you could,” Claire said, taping the bandage down. “Don’t pick at it.” She presses a bottle of painkillers into his hand. “Use them.”

She settles next to Karen and the way they’re interacting is familiar. It makes Matt’s throat go dry with envy when Clair brushes Karen’s hair out of her face. Not because he wants to brush Karen’s hair out of her face, but because he wants to do that to Foggy. He does do it sometimes, just brushing the hair away if he’s standing close enough to hear the shift of it against Foggy’s skin. But he wants to do it the way Claire’s doing it.  Lovingly. Tenderly. Caringly. Not just pushing it out of the way but tucking it behind the ear, sliding his fingers over Foggy’s smooth, soft skin, down his chin to the back of his neck and then pulling him down for a kiss or two.

He doesn’t think he’s asking for much.

(That’s a lie. He knows he’s asking for too much. The Catholic in him twitches a slight bit. He’s never been homophobic but the nuns weren’t exactly nice when they talked about it.)

(It’s fine, he’s thought ever since he realized that Foggy meant more to him than as a friend. He’s probably going to Hell because of Daredevil anyway.)

Claire’s arm fits firmly around Karen’s shoulder, not even bracing on the top of the chair but pressed into the back of it. Her fingers are steadily tracing a circle on Karen’s shoulder.

Matt is jealous.

Matt wants that.

He closes his eyes. “What-" He takes a slow breath. "What should I do?”

There’s a happier beat to Karen’s heart now and he tries to relax. He’s never actually considered the thought that he could to _tell_ Foggy how he feels. Sure it’s occurred in the late night when he’s about ready to nod off into dreamland but _actually_ thinking about _actually_ telling Foggy that he loves him and would be very happy to die for him has not been something that he’s done. It’s mostly been fantasies about Foggy confessing the same and then they get married by Karen (who mysteriously has been ordained for three years) and then they have sex because Matt may be a horrible Catholic who is very interested in his very _male_ best friend and often beats up others and occasionally uses the Lord’s name in vain and very often gets off to the idea of his very male best friend but damn if he won’t do one thing correctly that won’t require a priest and confessional.

(Vaguely he’s aware that if Foggy wants to have sex before marriage, nothing will be stopping Matt from getting Foggy Nelson naked and in his bed in that exact moment. Aliens could fall from the sky again and Matt would still drag Foggy through the panic and chaos in the intent to have all the sex with him.)

(Goodness, he’s a horrible Catholic.)

(He can’t quite bring himself to care.)

“Start from the beginning,” Claire says, “because I’d like to know when you first started liking Foggy.”

Matt makes a noise because he’s always _liked_ Foggy. It just took him a long time to realize that the way he likes Foggy is not in the same way he likes Karen or Claire.

When he says this, Claire makes a noise, breath exhaling sharply from her nose, and says, “Well, when you first loved him then.”

But it’s the same. On some level, his love for Foggy was automatic, the moment he stepped into the dorm room and heard Foggy’s chatter, heard his voice and felt warmed by, comforted by it. On another level it was a slow process that probably took all of a month to complete. It just took a while to realize that the way he loved Foggy was not the same way he had loved anyone else. It’d been a while since he’d loved a living person and Stick hadn’t exactly approved of attachments.

He repeats that verbatim, chewing on his bottom lip. “March 19th,” he continues slowly. “That’s when I realized it.”

“There you go!” Karen chirps. “Tell him on March 19th. Like an anniversary. You can go to dinner and everything and then-”

Claire puts up both her hands to stop the two of them from discussing it any further. “Wait, wait. How did you realize it?”

It’d been the beginning of the year. Karen was out on a coffee run. The windows were all closed but the hurling wind was still audible. Foggy was mumbling words from his latest case file under his breath. Matt hadn’t slept much and a head injury he was fully inclined to never tell anyone about was throbbing at his skull. He couldn’t think. A headache was easing its way in and he was about ready to curl up and call it a day.

“Matt?” Foggy had asked. “You okay?”

“M’fine,” Matt had said back, repressing a whine at the loudness of Foggy’s voice.

Foggy stood up, stretching a little before marching over. “You don’t look fine, buddy.”

“It’s just-” Matt winced. “It’s just my head.”

This particular head injury had not been from a fight but rather from Matt stupidly knocking his head against the bathroom tile, reopening a wound that was only a few days away from healing completely. In his defense, he wasn’t exactly thinking clearly. There was something else on his mind and he’d been doing things because that particular thing had caused a reaction he wanted to get rid of.

Karen chokes on a laugh, cutting him off in the middle of his story and Claire is holding in her own breath. Her shoulders are still shaking and Matt wants to die because he probably shouldn't have said that and regrets everything.

“You were masturbating to the thought of Foggy and hit your head on the shower tile after your orgasm?” Karen snickers.

Matt is pretty sure this is how he’s going to die. Not in a fight with some car thief or mafia boss but through sheer embarrassment in front of his half-naked secretary and the woman who cleans him up after a fight. Through sheer embarrassment in front of his friends.

(This hasn’t happened since he was a child. It feels kind of nice.)

He clears his throat. “What I may or may not have been doing is not important. I just wanted to explain why I _had_ the injury.”

Claire snorts, Karen laughs again and he continues, fully aware that neither of them will never let it go.

(They don't.)

(Matt wants to die on multiple occasions because of this.)

“Oh. One minute, buddy.” Foggy headed over to Karen’s desk and pulled open a drawer, the sound grating against Matt’s skull. He came back with a bottle of painkillers, rattling like a maraca.

Matt hates maracas.

He  winced heavily and nearly cried. He wanted to bash his head in with something just to get the noise to stop. He wanted to scream. He wanted to jump out the window. He wanted to die.

Instead he grabbed his head and convulsed uncomfortably, hitting his head in with a fist because the noise had to stop and it wasn't stopping and he didn't understand  _why_.

Foggy swore and drops the bottle. “Matt?” He sounded panicked and his heart was writing out a beat of worry. He grabbed Matt. “Matt!”

Matt stopped, trying to center himself. Having a tantrum wouldn’t help his current situation. Foggy’s breathing was steady and he focused on it. Foggy was holding his face and his skin was so warm and honestly Matt wanted to just roll into him and stay like that forever. Matt Murdock may be making Hell’s Kitchen a safer and better place one punched criminal at a time but only Foggy Nelson could make him feel truly safe.

He breathed in with every breath Foggy hushed out. Finally, Foggy dropped his hand from his face and took a step back.

“What happened?”

“I just-” He swallowed and tried to find himself. “Sometimes I get, I get _uncomfortable_ with- with sound.” He licked his lips. “Some noises make me feel-” He couldn’t quite help the shudder that overtook him, thinking back to the rattling.

“And what?” Foggy shifted. “You freak out like that?”

He let out a break of a laugh and whispered, “Yeah.”

Foggy’s shoulders dropped in disappointment, in annoyance, in the tiniest twinge of anger. “How long?”

“Ever since I can remember,” Matt replied slowly. "Ever since the accident."

“Damn, Matt. Why didn’t you say anything?” Foggy swallowed and it was loud and calming because Foggy was perfect like that. “Geez, all those years I was snoring. I could’ve taken something!”

“No, you-” Matt shifted. “You make things better. Easier. You’re the only person who hasn’t-” He swallowed now, feeling he was on the edge of confessing something but he wasn’t sure what. “-Who _can’t_ bother me. You never have.”

And that was true. Sure his snoring was bothersome but it was still better than anything else. It never made his skin crawl or made him want to ram a brick against his skull.

And realizing _that_ was the moment he slowly looked back at everything about Foggy and _that_ was the moment he realized that he _loved_ Foggy. That he loved Foggy in a way he shouldn’t but wholeheartedly did.

Karen had burst in the moment after his little bout of realizing and he’d jumped at the noise, too caught up in his own swirl of thought to have heard her coming up the steps. Her breath was peppering and she dropped their tray of coffee to the table. It hit lightly to everyone else, probably unnoticeable, but the sound boomed in Matt’s ears and he wished he’d just rolled over and gone back to sleep when he woke up that morning. He’d known it wasn’t going to be a good day.

Foggy reached over and rubbed his back soothingly, making a low apology before stepping away and Matt Murdock finally came to terms to how head over in heels in love he was with one Foggy Nelson.

“Oh, the Xerox store is closing up early today,” Karen said, handing Foggy his coffee. “I saw a sign on their door that on March 19th they’d be closing at three instead of at five so if you need any copies…”

Matt marked the date in his head without really thinking about it and said, “We’ll send you down before three.” He accepted his coffee and held in his desire to punch something with how loudly Karen was sipping at hers.

“And that’s how,” he finishes plainly.

The air is quiet and settled and he feels exposed. Like a fish out of water. It’s uncomfortable and takes him back to Claire finding him in the dumpster and Foggy sobbing and shouting at him and Karen screaming in hushed whispers, the door slamming behind her.

It does not make him feel good.

“That was nice,” Claire finally says and Karen nods in agreement.

“Use that,” Karen urges. “On the nineteenth, you take him out to dinner and say, ‘Foggy Nelson, you are the only person who has yet to irritate my senses and I'm in love with you for it.’”

“I’m not saying that,” Matt says immediately.

“Why not?” Karen protests.

He sputters and then snaps, “Because I don’t want him to know I’m in love with him!”

“What did you think we’re talking about?” Karen gestures angrily and Claire’s arm falls off her shoulder. Slamming her palms against the table, Karen leans over and put her face close to Matt’s. “Look, Matt Murdock. You tell Foggy you love him on the nineteenth of March or I am telling him the twentieth.”

“You can’t do that!” he protests but it’s weak because Karen can and will do anything if she thinks it’s important and apparently making sure Matt confesses his love for Foggy is important to her. He hasn’t the slightest idea why.

“Tell him or I will,” she repeats then pushes back and stretches groaning. “Alright, I’m going to bed. Good night, Matt.”

Matt stares at her in horror, mouth gaping. After a few minutes, he clicks his mouth shut and frowns. “This is a horrible plan.”

Claire gets up. “You have a better idea?”

“No,” he says miserably.

“Then I guess you’re stuck with it,” she says. “Don’t pick at your stitches and use the medication!”

Matt hears her follow after Karen, her slippers sliding hard on the wooden floor, before rolling out the window like a seasoned pro. He would end up taking Foggy out to dinner and telling him he loves him on the nineteenth but by that time they would have already begun dating so it wouldn’t feel too much like a confession and Foggy would say it back after a while, a slow smile easing up his lips as he’d press a soft hand to Matt’s cheek.

(Granted Foggy would go quiet for a few minutes after the confession which would cause Matt to panic and want to pretend like someone was getting mugged so he could flee and figure out a way to escape the country. The French wouldn’t mind Daredevil taking up a post over there, would they?)

(They would but only in another universe does he learn this.)

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't planning on writing more but someone asked and it just happened. I'm not sure how I feel about that.


End file.
